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Badminton
Making inroads into a relatively new field can be difficult for any company, no matter what the size. Wilson has a history in the field of badminton, but they want more. The man charged with making that happen is Steve Yates, a former county player and Wales international. There's more to him than a sporting background (though his triathlon record is pretty impressive), as he has also spent several years working in sales and marketing in our industry. You could say, quite simply, he knows the sport inside out. Steve explains to SGB how Wilson are going to achieve great things in badminton...
SGB: You've been with Wilson for about six months - what have you focused on in that time?
Steve Yates: The primary objective so far has been to ensure that Wilson badminton is featured in key specialist retailers. That's been the priority, to impart some extra knowledge into the Wilson sales force and to make sure the key accounts are listing Wilson as a major brand for the new badminton season (which starts September, ending May).
We've had a great response. The last four months has seen a lot of time spent on the road with our guys, ensuring the new range is out there and stocked so that when demand picks up - which it has done - Wilson will be there competing more frequently for the badminton business. The response has been hugely positive, and I'm delighted so far.
SGB: Sports participation in the UK is changing, and people are - regardless of what the popular press says - becoming more active. Have things changed for badminton? Who plays the game in the UK?
SY: Over the last five to ten years, there's been quite a dramatic increase in the number of people playing badminton all year round as opposed to just in season, which means a flattening out of the traditional big spike of demand which used to happen in early September. That might be a result of the poor summers we've been having... It's also a reflection of the fact that the game has a huge amount of appeal because of its accessibility. The barriers to play are so low, it's a relatively inexpensive sport, it's easy to learn and two relative beginners can have a good thrash around on court. With sports like tennis and squash, you have to be reasonably proficient before you can enjoy a rally.
The numbers are incredible - something like 2- 3million regular players in the UK, and it's apparently the only sport that is played in equal numbers between men and women. The spread of ages is anywhere between five and 85. It's not really stressful on the joints, it's a very social sport - there's a lot going for it.
The research into the demographics isn't exhaustive, partly because typically it's a recreational sport. Out of those millions of players, perhaps 50,000 are affiliated to Badminton England. So the huge majority are recreational players. Badminton is also part of the school curriculum now and played all over the country in sports and leisure centres.
SGB: What's Wilson's history in the sport?
SY: Wilson has been in the badminton market for several years. It's one of the three main racket sports it covers. Wilson is the major tennis brand in the UK and globally, and is probably number one in terms of volume in squash. In badminton, it would certainly be in the top five brands in the UK.
The history is long and established, but recently we've turned our focus on becoming a much more serious player in badminton in the UK. Our objective is to become, in time, the number one badminton brand.
SGB: Why the shift in focus?
SY: The opportunity for growth exists in badminton. The participation numbers are extremely high, while our market share is relatively low compared to tennis and squash in the key markets around Europe. So we took the decision as a business - and the whole Wilson brand is supporting this - to increase our share of the badminton business. In order to do that, we need to be selling more of the premium end rackets and right across the board, including schools and recreation.
SGB: How are you going to reach the other 2,950,000 players that aren't affiliated to a club, in order to grow?
SY: That's the golden question. Some of those players are completely inaccessible; they will make a decision to buy in-store. They all have to buy somewhere though. They either have to buy new rackets or replace an old or broken one. Our focus there is to ensure that when the decision to buy is made, we are the brand that they consider to be first choice. That means we have to be in the places they are buying and we have to make a good value for money offer. With that in mind, one of our main focuses is in product development and offering consumers the best value product on the market.
The affiliated players are easier to communicate with, because they'll read magazines or use internet chatrooms about badminton, and so we can reach them through a variety of means.
SGB: Is there a benefit to the badminton side of the business from the squash and tennis sides of the business? Are there associated technologies?
SY: There are huge benefits in terms of the size and scale of the Wilson operation. We have an R&D facility which is second to none in terms of racket technology, so we're able to do things with racket development that a lot of other companies just can't do. What people will see in the near future - starting this year - is innovative technologies coming through, like K Factor for example, and new materials and features which produce different types of performance. We're investing a lot of time and effort in new product development in badminton products.
We don't simply think it's a question of taking something that works in tennis and slapping it on a badminton racket; we're very much of the opinion that technologies should be developed specifically for this sport. It's not a question of cutting and pasting things that work in tennis or squash, which some companies have been seen to do.
My background is within badminton as a specialist in the sport, and I have some insight into the game, what's required at every level of participation, and to be able to put those features onto rackets.
SGB: What are your plans to reach out to and support independent retailers?
SY: We have one of the strongest and best sales forces in the UK sports industry. We have guys on the road with a portfolio of retail accounts, working hard, calling on their accounts, and are able to offer a service that's second to none for sports equipment. Wilson is part of the Amer Sports group, which is really beneficial.
The small independents, the one-offs, they are hugely important for equipment companies like us, because it's becoming increasingly difficult to find places to buy tennis, squash or badminton rackets. They are very much a key part of our distribution strategy.
One of the other things we've come up with for this season is to put a lot of resource and time into our sales promotion initiatives. For example, with our premium to mid-end badminton rackets - the K Factor series - we have a sales promotion for sports shops and accounts that offers consumers a free t-shirt and a set of strings and grips with every racket they buy. As I said, we want to give the best value for money offer on the high street, and hopefully it will help independents sell more rackets.
We also have window displays, in-store merchandising, lots and lots of things to give retail support, which is readily available to retailers.
As the nights draw in, we can really start to raise the profile of badminton as a sport over the winter period to mutual benefit.
SGB: What's new and exciting in terms of product?
SY: Apart from the K Factor series of rackets, which are really excellent and have had a great start in their sell-through, we've launched a range of very serious feather shuttles - the Top Line series. We're targeting clubs, leagues and events with those; the response has been absolutely overwhelming. Feather shuttles have been subject to a lot of price pressure over the last six months and our competitors have been passing along huge price increases at regular intervals. We've locked our prices on shuttles for this entire season and a lot of trade customers have responded to that very positively.
Of course, we have a good range of everything for the sport, from full badminton kit on the apparel side, to footwear and a full range of accessories, including luggage and strings, grips et cetera.
Wilson is very much putting out a message of being a complete, top-to-toe brand in badminton - and it's something we will be building on over the next few years.
Web address: http://www.wilson.com/
